Liz Emmott, Head of Business Travel, outlined how Amadeus was changing from a geographic organisation to a global one organised around its customers and focussed on four sectors: retail, business travel, online, and corporations.

“Travel agents will continue to have their own Account Manager, but these will have the back-up of customer solutions and delivery experts in each of those four sectors. Ireland will be headed up by myself as Head of Business Travel; Claudio Santos, Head of Retail; Olwen McKinney, Sales and Accounts Manager; and Trish O’Leary, Commercial Manager.

“Amadeus invested €750 million last year as we build our new Live Travel Space that will be connected through the Amadeus Travel Platform.”

Claire de Bono, Director of Product & Innovation (UK & Ireland), explained how NDC was impacting on air content distribution and how the options presented to agents are changing.

“Under NDC, various elements of air bookings that have traditionally been available separately to agents are now being brought under the control of the airlines, who can choose what to offer agents in bundles – or not to offer. What Amadeus is doing is to make the traditional variety look like NDC and we are currently working with Travix International and Flight Centre to this end.”

Pyton Flight Portal

Andreas Bieber, Sales Executive – Flight Portal, Pyton, an Amadeus company, introduced the Pyton Flight Portal, an API/xml flight booking platform that can be fully integrated into a travel website or reservation system and which provides direct connections to over 100 low-cost carriers globally.

“Currently some 30% of air passengers fly with low-cost carriers – and for Western Europe the figure is 37%. Pyton began 20 years ago in the Netherlands and now covers 150,000+ routes. Agents can add their own margins and can earn more money in the market place.”

Claudio Santos, Head of Retail, introduced trends in technology and travel by stating that in four years’ time 47% of the workforce will be millennials, or Generation Ys, and advised agents to “network to add products that your customers are not expecting.

“The use of chatbots will be important in order to improve your service to customers and to free your staff to sell more.”